Bruins try to make last stand

As a UCLA alum and fan, I see that I have the choice of two disasters to watch, USC thrashing UCLA again or the Errol Flynn movie about Custer, “They Died With Their Boots On.” I’ll watch the movie.

Custer had to endure only one disaster, unlike UCLA fans who have to endure the annual beating by USC.

And Santa, I only have two wishes. Let Pete Carroll take the Cardinals job and Karl Dorrell also find employment in the NFL as an assistant coach.

WAYNE M. CUTLER

Los Angeles

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Note to Coach Dorrell:

In case you missed it, the entire collegiate media world has already put USC in the BCS national title game. You certainly have enough bulletin board fodder to last two seasons!

It’s time to pull out the stops, and use whatever means necessary to beat SC. Maybe some trick plays, move the pocket, razzle-dazzle stuff. I know you’ve learned from your experience at South Bend that three running plays and a punt is not going to get it done. Hey, and a little animation won’t hurt either and it just might get the boys fired up.

MICHAEL RUBINO

San Pedro

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All the motivation Karl Dorrell and the Bruins need in the crosstown rivalry can come from the slap in the face delivered by the national media.

As USC ran in a late touchdown Saturday, Brent Musburger proclaimed on national television that the Trojans had a date in Glendale, Ariz., against Ohio State. All of the staff and players at UCLA should see this as complete disrespect, and play with a passion that has not been seen in the recent era of Bruins football.

BRYAN ABAJIAN

Rancho Cucamonga

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Could you be a more of a hometown paper? Michigan narrowly loses to No. 1 Ohio State and you’re ready to boot them to the Rose Bowl.

Meanwhile, USC loses to unranked Oregon State but beats up Notre Dame -- a team you have previously criticized for its softball schedule -- so the Trojans deserve to be No. 2? I’m sure a victory over powerhouse UCLA will only reinforce your “logical choice.”

DAVID HIGGINS

Los Angeles

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Bill Plaschke’s article on making the case for Pete Carroll leaving USC is convincing. However, a key element for him staying is not stated in the article.

Pete Carroll has found his niche with student-athletes. They respond to his coaching and insight of the game. Pro football players are a different breed of player who play for dollars and not the fun of the game.

I’ve seen Pete’s face on the field. He’s having fun.

BILL SIMINSKE

Glendora

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It was interesting watching Charlie Weis Jr. -- the son of the Notre Dame coach -- gradually distancing himself from his father on the sideline as the game progressed and simultaneously witnessing Pete Carroll’s USC Trojans separate themselves from the Irish on the field of play.

MICHAEL A. DELGADO

Corona

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So Old Domer Dwyre certainly needs to be acknowledged for living up to his own acronym; his work certainly merits coverage of tennis and watching the grass grow ... if there’s a difference.

Just wondering if the field ever looked so bad way back when Dwyre and the buffalo (not Coach Weis) roamed South Bend.

JACK VON BULOW

Temple City

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After reading Bill Dwyre’s pro-Notre Dame column last week, a column filled with fertilizer and bias, I was looking forward to his report on the USC victory over Notre Dame. Would he tip his hat to the better team, and recognize that Charlie Weis is no match for Pete Carroll and the young, gutty Trojans?

Guess we will never know, since he didn’t cover the game. Could the reason be that he was placed on private/secret probation for his Notre Dame story and assigned to do a special report on mucking the barns at Hollywood Park?

RICHARD WHORTON

Valley Village

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Great logic, Bill Dwyre. “The Notre Dame grass wasn’t dangerous because only one athlete had a season-ending, possibly career-ending, injury.”

You should work for a tobacco company.

BRETT MERRYMAN

West Hollywood

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While listening to Lou Holtz pontificate on the substantial prowess of the Notre Dame football team again this year and his prediction of their victory over USC on Saturday, I couldn’t help but wonder how USC ever lost to a team he coached.

TED BARTSCHERER

Pasadena

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I am fed up with sportswriters intoning about how awful the BCS is, then insisting it is impossible to end it. The fact that the BCS bureaucrats made a four-year deal with Fox sports does not mean the system can’t be dumped. Deals with TV networks are not inviolate laws of physics.

The BCS is a silly, bizarre distortion of everything good about college sports -- not to mention an insult to coaches, players and fans. It serves no one except money-grubbing college presidents and greedy television executives.

Trash it. Now.

JOHN SMART

Los Angeles

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Hey, Marc Tyler [Nov. 29], wake up and smell the coffee. Go to UCLA and start as a freshman or go to USC and sit behind Emmanuel Moody and C.J. Gable for three years. Might want to rethink this decision, young man.

LARRY LARSON

Torrance

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I’m sure Jimmy Clausen has fantasies about riding into South Bend on a white horse and rescuing Notre Dame football. The only white horse he’ll be seeing is the one Brady Quinn saw galloping across the Coliseum grass 11 times, the number of touchdowns USC scored during his two trips to Los Angeles.

JIM LLOVERA

El Segundo